Cool

It is official. The first REAL cold front of the season is here. In South FL. Right now my bedroom window is wide open - and the AC is OFF!! There is a good deal of cool air pouring in the window now.

And it is wonderful.

I drank my Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale. I was waiting for the first cold front of the year so that I could properly enjoy such a heavy beer.

While driving to the drink the beer hangout spot, the truck windows were down. The rear split window was open. And the heater was on full blast. I like this driving mode. It feels good.

Last week it was cool - or at least not hot. But it was all gray and ugly. Tuesday the sky was clear and blue - and it felt like the whole planet was air conditioned.

Since it is not even Halloween yet, I am VERY OPTIMISTIC about this winter. It is shaping up to be very nice.

For me. Maybe not for you. I am in South Florida. You may get buried in snow. But for me it will just be cool. Maybe even chilly.

Cold for my standards is below 50F / 10C. And currently it is 51F / 10.6C.

That is about all for here! The rest of this week is looking REALLY GOOD!!!! Nice and cool. Clear blue skies - and no heat. No bugs. It will be safe to venture into the everglades again.

Yes. This winter is looking very good.

Tally Me Banana

It seems that the votes are in, and number 6 won. The pool look. The problem with the pool look is that it does not exactly fit in well with the font colors I have. So, I will need to tweak the font colors a bit so as to make everything look OK. I may have to slightly alter the background image to make the blues slightly darker. Or lighter. Either way the font colors need to be changed.

So I went with 5, but it is not going to be the final new look for 08. I just need more time to play with the look and feel. Ill get around to it.

In other news, winter arrived last night. A front moved through and temperatures are in the mid to lower 30s. For all you Celsius people that is 0 - 5 or so degrees. No lower than 0. But the winds are cranked up so it feels pretty cold. And if you add Miami Standards to the equation it is like a full on blizzard. If you live in the north, imagine that outside it is 50 below freezing, and the carbon dioxide from your breath freezes before your eyes and falls to the ground as dry ice. That is how people are acting.

Today when I was out and about I saw people in Eskimo style jackets. Not as thick of course but with the same basic look. You know, with the fur lined hood that goes over your head. One of those jackets.

Really now - it was not that cold this afternoon! The sun was up. The latitude is still 25 degrees north. Hell 120 nautical miles to the south and it is officially the tropical zone! So it is not like this is Greenland or anything. The wind was blowing at about 20 knots steady, with higher gusts - so there was some wind chill. But I was out in jeans and a short sleeve shirt and did not die. If I was going to be outside all day I would have probably sported something with long sleeves, like a flannel shirt or a lightweight wind breaker. But a jacket? Come on now. Get real. It was not that cold.

If I were outside right now I would bust out with the jacket. And I would probably still be cold because while I have a jacket I lack proper cold weather lower body clothing. All I have are Florida jeans - which have no liner or anything. Long underwear? Yea right. Don't have any of that shit either. The best I could do would be jeans just a little too small for me but that I could still get into, with jeans that fir looser over them. Or my sleeping pants (flannel pajama bottoms) with jeans over them. But more often than not, if I venture too far north in the winter and it gets cold (by South Florida standards) my ass freezes. And my feet freeze. I just have regular shoes but I can double up the socks.

But all in all, this cold snap will being me some good benefits. I may venture into the Everglades this weekend. It has been a while since I rode the Shark Valley loop. I want to do that. The cold will mean less mosquitoes. In fact, it should mean NO mosquitoes. And the alligators will be sunning by the tram road, as the road soaks up heat. So that is always fun. There will be many photos if I go. It all depends on the wind really. The ride is not that far but I do not want to fight a strong head wind either.

There also may be another fishing mission this week.

Clock Bullshit

Well I hope everyone remembered to fall back one hour last night. That is if you live in some stone age place that still does this crap.

What exactly is the point? I can not figure it out. Supposedly, it "saves energy". OK then. Explain how. Quick! How does it save energy? I know! According to the clocks, the sun stays up longer. OK fair enough. So why don't we just keep the clocks set one hour ahead of where they are set now? Somehow it saves energy in the summer but not in the winter?

I do not get it. But whatever. It is not my idea to screw with the clocks. Maybe it does save energy. Who knows. They say it does, so it must. Right?

However, I kind of like the fall back thing. It gets later faster. This is good if you are a night kind of person.

Another strange thing happened Sunday. It was actually a nice day! The air was nice and crisp and cool. And the skies were clear. It was ALMOST like the world was air conditioned today. Almost. When the sun went down it was awesome. It got cooler, and the skies remained clear. Really nice. It is barely November and already this is happening. I am holding out hope for a really nice winter season. If the cool dry air keeps up, then it will be Everglades season sooner rather than later. Awesome.